Toolkit Tags

Downeast Lakes Land Trust’s carbon project covers more than 19,000 acres of the trust’s 33,700 Farm Cove Community Forest in eastern Maine, and registered nearly 200,000 offsets; each offset is equivalent to one ton of carbon dioxide.

Climate change is already altering fire regimes, invasive plant and insect dispersal, and disease occurrence in forests across the United States. As average global temperature continues to warm, these changes will continue, presenting greater challenges to efforts to sustainably manage forests lands.

The Pacific Forest Trust is a pioneer of approaches and standards used to create forest climate policies including carbon emissions reductions or offset projects which harness and protect the natural ability of forests to accumulate and hold carbon, acting as carbon “sinks” and providing essential climate benefits.

Land cover maps depict where and how much of a region is covered by forests, wetlands, development, and other natural and man-made features. Documenting changes in the landscape can alert communities to emerging trends, information that is useful when predicting and assessing cumulative impacts in the light of climate stressors, such as sea level rise.

The Forest Service conducts periodic assessments of the condition of forest and rangeland resources. This 2000 report assesses impacts of climate change to U.S. forests to support resource management planning objectives.